Myth, Faith and Allegory

Noah’s Ark. The ship of Ulysses passing the Sirens. Charon’s boat on the Styx, Bosch’s Ship of Fools, Rembrandt’s storm on the Sea of Galilee, Böcklin’s ferry to the Isle of the Dead. The ships that never sailed, and the ones that carry the oldest stories we have.

This chapter of Ships in Paintings holds 63 works. For each one you will find the artist and, wherever the records allow, the date and where the original is kept; then what the ship brings to the picture, and the real ship behind it when there is one. See all 1,331 works on one page.

Marea can build any of these ships as a scale model, with the maximum detail the scale permits, finished to be inspected. We can build her as the artist saw her: the same rig, the same sails set, the same colours. It isn’t a copy of a painting. It’s the ship, stepping out of it.

This database was put together by Ai Refloat™, Marea’s own artificial intelligence, from the records of museums, maritime archives and published sources. Ai Refloat is still young & like any teenager, it can be a little volatile and unpredictable at times, but above all, it is learning fast. So this list may well contain mistakes and we welcome the input of everyone who knows these paintings, photographs and ships better than we do: listening, correcting and learning is one of the many ways we work towards perfection in this craft.

When no free image of a work exists, we show instead the museum or the place where the original can be seen.

Have you spotted a mistake? Tell us which painting, photograph or ship, and we will amend it accordingly. Tell us here

The works

Myth, faith and allegory · Vase
The ship of Dionysus Myth and legend
The Dionysus Cup (Kylix with Dionysus sailing), c. 540 to 530 BC
Artist Exekias (active c. 545 to 530 BC)
Where to see it Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich (2044)
Medium Black-figure pottery (kylix)
Inside a drinking cup, Exekias painted a ship that fills almost the whole round. The god Dionysus, long-haired and bearded and crowned with ivy, reclines aboard as his vessel sails under a white sail; from the mast grows a vine heavy with seven clusters of grapes, and dolphins swim all around the hull. The most common reading links it to the Homeric Hymn in which Etruscan pirates seized the god, who confused their minds so that they leapt into the sea and became dolphins. The cup was found at Vulci and acquired for Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1841.
The legend A mythical vessel of the god Dionysus, drawn as a Greek sailing ship of the sixth century BC with an animal-head prow, a steering oar and a single white sail.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Exekias; photo ArchaiOptix, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Vase
The ship of Odysseus Myth and legend
Odysseus and the Sirens, red-figure stamnos (the Siren Vase), c. 480 to 470 BC
Artist The Siren Painter (active c. 480 to 470 BC)
Where to see it British Museum, London (1843,1103.31)
Medium Red-figure pottery (stamnos)
This is the vase that gave the Siren Painter his name, and one of the finest ships in Greek art. Odysseus is tied to the mast so that he can hear the Sirens and live, while his rowers pull at their oars and the steersman stands at the stern with the steering oar. The sail is brailed up along the yard and a great eye is painted on the bow. Two Sirens, birds with women's heads, perch on the cliffs on either side, and a third plunges headlong towards the ship.
The legend A mythical vessel from Homer's Odyssey, Book XII, drawn as a Greek oared ship of the early fifth century BC with a single mast, a brailed square sail, a painted eye at the bow and a steering oar at the stern.
Sources British Museum · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: The Siren Painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Drawing
The Bark of Saint Peter Myth and legend
Navicella (recto); Two Drawings of Ships (verso), c. 1410s
Artist Parri Spinelli (1387 to c. 1453), after Giotto
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1961.38)
Medium Pen and brown ink (iron gall)
Giotto's Navicella, commissioned in 1298 for Old Saint Peter's in Rome, showed Christ walking on the water and Peter summoned from a fishing boat with a great sail, while wind gods blew from the sky. The boat stood for the Ship of the Church, with Peter and his successors as its captains, and promised that the Church would not sink. The mosaic was later almost entirely destroyed, but around the 1410s Parri Spinelli copied it where it stood, with a quill pen: Christ on the water at right, Peter kneeling before him in front of a ship filled with the disciples. On the back of the sheet he drew two large ships and two rowing boats full of people.
The legend A symbolic vessel: the fishing boat of the apostles in Matthew 14, made by Giotto into the Ship of the Church. Such a large maritime scene was unprecedented, at least since classical times.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Parri Spinelli, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship saved by Saint Nicholas Myth and legend
Saint Nicholas Saving a Ship from the Tempest (Quaratesi Polyptych predella), 1425
Artist Gentile da Fabriano (c. 1370 to 1427)
Where to see it Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City
Medium Painting on panel
In the legend a ship caught by a storm far out at sea is saved when Saint Nicholas appears to the sailors. Gentile shows the tempest only in the sails torn by the wind; sea and sky are calm, while on board the crew are frantic, lightening the ship by throwing the cargo overboard or praying to the saint, who swoops down from the sky in a blaze of gold. Here, in a small predella panel for the Quaratesi family's chapel in Florence, he lavishes attention on real rigging, ropes, rope ladders, the anchor and the ship's boat, and adds a mermaid and a starfish in the green sea.
The legend A legendary vessel from the miracles of Saint Nicholas of Myra, patron saint of sailors; Gentile painted it as a merchant ship of his own day.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (IT) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Gentile da Fabriano, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The apostles' fishing boat on Lake Geneva Myth and legend
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (La Pêche miraculeuse), 1444
Artist Konrad Witz (c. 1400 to c. 1446)
Where to see it Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva (1843-0011)
Medium Painting on fir panel
Witz set the Gospel on his own shore. The mountains behind are real: the Voirons, the Môle, the Salève and the snows of Mont Blanc, with the houses on piles of Geneva along the water. It is often called the first topographical landscape in European painting. In the boat the apostles haul in their net while Peter has thrown himself into the lake to reach Christ, who stands on the water in a red cloak; Peter's legs bend under the surface, the first painted refraction. The altarpiece it belonged to was probably partly destroyed in the iconoclasm of 1535 at Geneva cathedral, but this wing survived.
The legend The fishing boat of the apostles, painted as a small open boat of the fishermen of Lake Geneva in the fifteenth century.
Sources Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Konrad Witz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's ships Myth and legend
The Return of Ulysses (cassone panel), c. 1475
Artist Sienese artist close to Liberale da Verona
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (5792-1860)
Medium Tempera on poplar panel
Painted for a cassone, the kind of wedding chest a bride used to store her trousseau, this panel tells the story of Ulysses and Penelope. Penelope weaves in a castle on the left, faithful through twenty years; in the centre a man boards a ship with his horse, and beyond a walled city three ships sail towards it in the distance, the husband's ship at last arriving. Penelope, the model of faithfulness, was often chosen for furniture made for a wedding, and the ships carry the promise of the marriage chest: however long the voyage, the husband comes home.
The legend Mythical vessels from Homer's Odyssey, painted as the sailing ships of fifteenth-century Italy.
Sources V&A · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Sienese artist close to Liberale da Verona, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ursula's pilgrim ships Myth and legend
Shrine of Saint Ursula (Ursulaschrijn), c. 1489
Artist Hans Memling (c. 1430 to 1494)
Where to see it Memling Museum, Old Saint John's Hospital (Sint-Janshospitaal), Bruges
Medium Oil on panel, in a carved and gilded wooden reliquary
Made to hold relics of Saint Ursula, which were solemnly placed in it on 21 October 1489, Memling's shrine is a little carved and gilded Gothic chapel, and along its sides six small arched scenes tell her story in the manner of stained glass windows. The pilgrims arrive at Cologne, with its unfinished cathedral, at Basel and at Rome, leave Basel on the way home, and meet their martyrdom. In the first scene their ship lies at the Cologne quay, its crew unloading as Ursula and her maidens step ashore. The backgrounds are northern cities painted with close attention to the life of Memling's own day.
The legend Legendary vessels of Ursula's pilgrimage, painted as the ships of the Rhine and the Low Countries in Memling's time.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Hans Memling, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The pilgrims' ships at Cologne Myth and legend
Arrival of the Pilgrims in Cologne (Legend of Saint Ursula), c. 1490
Artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460 to c. 1525)
Where to see it Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (Cat. 579)
Medium Painting on canvas
The first canvas Carpaccio painted for the Scuola di Sant'Orsola shows Ursula and her companions, with the Pope, arriving at Cologne, which the Huns are besieging. Their tall ships lie moored in the river beneath the city walls, a small boat alongside, while armoured soldiers wait on the bank. Over the tower fly red and white banners with three golden crowns, those of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II, Venice's great enemy in Carpaccio's day, so that the ancient legend reads as a warning from the painter's own world. The ships that have carried the pilgrims safely to the city are about to deliver them to their martyrdom.
The legend Legendary vessels of Ursula's pilgrimage; according to the Golden Legend she and her companions were martyred at Cologne on the way home from Rome.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Vittore Carpaccio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Ship of Fools Myth and legend
The Ship of Fools, c. 1490 to 1500
Artist Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 to 1516)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris
Medium Oil on panel
Ten figures crowd a little boat: a Franciscan friar and a nun with a lute sing open-mouthed as they try to bite a pancake hanging on a string, one rower uses a giant ladle for an oar, and a fool perched on a branch drinks apart. The mast is a greasy pole crowned with a bouquet, a roast bird tied to it, and a long pink pennant bearing a crescent moon flies from the top. The panel is a fragment of a wing of a dismembered triptych whose other wing is Death and the Miser in Washington. The boat has no sail and no one steering; the company is going nowhere and does not care.
The legend An allegorical vessel. The ship of fools is a trope going back to Book VI of Plato's Republic, popularised by Sebastian Brant's satire Das Narrenschiff, published in Basel in 1494.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Hieronymus Bosch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The pilgrims' fleet Myth and legend
The Meeting of the Betrothed Couple and the Departure of the Pilgrims (Legend of Saint Ursula), 1495
Artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460 to c. 1525)
Where to see it Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (Cat. 575)
Medium Painting on canvas
This canvas of Carpaccio's Ursula cycle is divided in two by a banner pole. On the left the English prince takes leave of his father among castles and steep cliffs; on the right he meets his bride and she parts from her own father, while in the background the pilgrimage sets out from a harbour city of Renaissance and Venetian buildings. The cycle was commissioned by the Loredan family, and Antonio Loredan sits on the parapet beside the pole. Behind the lovers the harbour is full of ships: one lies heeled over on her side at the quay, others ride at anchor, the fleet that will carry the pilgrims away.
The legend The fleet is legendary, from the Golden Legend's story of Ursula's pilgrimage; Carpaccio painted the ships of his own day in a harbour of imaginary Venetian-style buildings.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Vittore Carpaccio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Galleon Myth and legend
The Arrival of the English Ambassadors (Legend of Saint Ursula), 1497 to 1498
Artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460 to 1465, died c. 1525 to 1526)
Where to see it Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
Medium Painting on canvas
Though it opens Carpaccio's Ursula cycle, this canvas was among the last to be painted, in 1497 to 1498. It is read from right to left like a scene from the liturgical drama of the day: Ursula and her father talk, then the king receives the ambassadors who have come to ask her hand for a pagan prince. On the left, in the foreground under a loggia, the view opens onto a marine panorama with a galleon, the sea that will carry the story onward. Members of the Compagnia della Calza, who staged Venice's festivals, watch among the spectators.
The legend A legendary vessel of the Ursula story, painted as a galleon of Carpaccio's Venice.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, where the original is kept. Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Print
The Ship of Fools Myth and legend
Ship of Fools (woodcut for Sebastian Brant's Stultifera Navis), after 1497
Artist Albrecht Dürer (1471 to 1528)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1998.342)
Medium Woodcut
Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, published in Basel in 1494, filled a ship with fools to lash the weaknesses and vices of his time, and it became extremely popular at once. Of its 103 woodcuts, two thirds are attributed to the young Dürer. This sheet comes from the Latin edition, Stultifera Navis, translated by Jakob Locher in 1497. The ship is the whole joke and the whole sermon: a vessel bound for Narragonia, the land of fools, with all of humanity aboard.
The legend An allegorical vessel from Brant's satire, bound for the imaginary land of Narragonia and crewed by fools.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Albrecht Dürer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Noah's Ark Myth and legend
The Deluge (Diluvio universale), Sistine Chapel ceiling, c. 1508 to 1510
Artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 to 1564)
Where to see it Sistine Chapel, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City
Medium Fresco
According to Condivi, this was the first scene Michelangelo painted on the Sistine ceiling. Some sixty figures flee the rising water, carrying children and belongings, climbing trees, and dragging the exhausted to a last rock. In the centre a small boat is about to founder as those aboard fight to keep others off, and another group attacks the ark with a ladder and an axe. The ark itself rides untroubled, like a citadel on the waters, with the dove already come down and Noah looking out. In the chapel's scheme it stands for the Church, made of wood like the Cross, a vessel of salvation.
The legend The vessel of the Genesis flood narrative (Genesis 6 to 8), built by Noah to save his family and the animals.
Sources Wikipedia (IT) · Wikipedia
Image: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship of Odysseus Myth and legend
Penelope with the Suitors, c. 1509
Artist Pintoricchio (1454 to 1513)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG911)
Medium Fresco, transferred to canvas
Penelope sits at her loom, besieged by suitors, while in the distance behind her the Odyssey goes on. There is Odysseus's ship, decorated with the blue and gold arms of Pandolfo Petrucci, ruler of Siena, who commissioned the frescoes to celebrate his son's marriage. Odysseus is strapped to the mast so that he can hear the Sirens, the mermaids in the water, and sailors from a small boat nearby dive in, maddened by their song. On the coast he meets Circe among her pigs. The little ship carries the hero home, and flatters a patron who, like Odysseus, had known exile and homecoming.
The legend A mythical vessel from Homer's Odyssey, painted as a Renaissance ship decorated with the coat of arms of the Petrucci family.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: Pintoricchio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Charon's boat Myth and legend
Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx, c. 1515 to 1524
Artist Joachim Patinir (c. 1480 to 1524)
Where to see it Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Medium Oil on panel
The Styx runs down the middle of Patinir's world landscape, and on it Charon's boat carries a single small soul between two destinies. To the left lie Paradise, a luminous fountain and angels on the grassy hills; to the right, Hell, with Cerberus at its gate and fires blazing in the hills. The soul in the boat looks towards Hell, ignoring the angel on the bank who beckons him to the harder path to Heaven. Patinir set the ferryman of Virgil and Dante within the Christian traditions of the Last Judgement and the art of dying well, and made the boat the hinge of the whole choice.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ferry in which Charon rows the souls of the dead across the Styx, described in Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Inferno.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Joachim Patinir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Drawing
Peter's fishing boats Myth and legend
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (Raphael Cartoon), c. 1515 to 1516
Artist Raphael (1483 to 1520)
Where to see it Royal Collection, on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (ROYAL LOANS.2)
Medium Bodycolour (glue tempera) on paper mounted on canvas
Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to design tapestries for the Sistine Chapel showing the lives of Saints Peter and Paul, seen as the founders of the Church. In this cartoon Christ has told Peter to cast his net, and the catch is so great that the two small boats sit low in the water, heaped with fish, while fishermen haul in the net. Peter kneels before Christ to acknowledge him and confess his own sinfulness. Raphael even shows the figures reflected in the still lake, with cranes on the shore. The story looks forward to Peter as a fisher of men.
The legend The fishing boats of Simon Peter and his partners on the Sea of Galilee in Luke 5:1 to 11; small open boats worked by oar and net.
Sources V&A · Wikipedia
Image: Raphael, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Theseus's ship Myth and legend
Bacchus and Ariadne, 1520 to 1523
Artist Titian (c. 1488 to 1576)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG35)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the shore of Naxos, Ariadne turns in alarm as Bacchus leaps from his chariot towards her, his wild train of satyrs and nymphs behind. But look to the lower left: far out on the blue sea is the ship of Theseus, sailing away with the man who has abandoned her. That small sail is the reason for everything in the picture, her loneliness and the god's sudden love. Titian painted it for the Alabaster Room of Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, combining all the purest and most vibrant pigments of his day.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ship in which Theseus sailed from Naxos after abandoning Ariadne, as told by Ovid and Catullus.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: Titian, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship of Saint Vincent's relics Myth and legend
Saint Vincent, Patron Saint of Lisbon, c. 1530s to 1550s
Artist Frei Carlos (active second quarter of the 16th century)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (58.145.2)
Medium Oil on wood
The deacon saint stands in a sumptuous gold brocade dalmatic, holding the martyr's palm and a closed book, and in his right hand a small ship, which the Metropolitan Museum describes as a miniature boat drawn with great precision. The ship is his emblem as patron of Lisbon. After his martyrdom ravens were said to have guarded his grave at Cape Saint Vincent, and in 1173 King Afonso I had the relics brought by ship to Lisbon Cathedral, a voyage still shown on the city's coat of arms. The Portuguese painter Frei Carlos puts a ship of his own age in the saint's hand.
The legend Legendary vessel: the relics of Vincent of Saragossa were brought by ship from Cape Saint Vincent to Lisbon in 1173; Frei Carlos renders it as a contemporary high-castled sailing ship.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia
Image: Frei Carlos, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Full-rigged ship sailing past Icarus Unnamed
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1560s
Artist After Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525 to 1569)
Where to see it Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Oldmasters Museum), Brussels (4030)
Medium Oil on canvas
A ploughman turns his furrow, a shepherd looks up, an angler fishes, and a great ship sails on through the bay; only Icarus's legs, in the water just below the ship, tell us that a myth has ended. The composition is Bruegel's, but this canvas is now usually seen as a good early copy of his lost original. Auden, staying in Brussels in December 1938, took it as the example for his poem Musée des Beaux Arts, on how everything turns away from suffering. Few ships in art say so much by simply keeping their course.
“how everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster”
W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts (1938)
The vessels An unnamed full-rigged sailing ship of Bruegel's time; Bruegel also made a design for an engraving showing the ship and falling figures.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: After Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Print
Armed three-masted ship Unnamed
Armed Three Master with Daedalus and Icarus in the Sky (from The Sailing Vessels), 1561 to 1565
Artist Frans Huys (1522 to 1562), after Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525 to 1569)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (28.4(2))
Medium Engraving
This engraving belongs to The Sailing Vessels, a series after designs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, engraved by Frans Huys and published by Hieronymus Cock. An armed three-master fills the plate, riding the waves, while high in the sky Daedalus and Icarus make their flight. Bruegel shrinks the myth to two small figures above the sea and gives the ship the whole stage: the fall of the boy becomes a detail beside the business of sailing, the same idea that runs through the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus long associated with his name.
The vessels An unnamed armed three-masted sailing ship of the mid-sixteenth century, one of the vessel types recorded in Bruegel's series The Sailing Vessels.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia
Image: Frans Huys, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' fishing boat Myth and legend
Christ at the Sea of Galilee, c. 1570s
Artist Circle of Jacopo Tintoretto, probably Lambert Sustris (c. 1515 to c. 1584)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1952.5.27), Samuel H. Kress Collection
Medium Oil on canvas
Long published as Tintoretto, this canvas is now catalogued by the National Gallery of Art as by the circle of Tintoretto, probably Lambert Sustris. Christ stands on the shore and raises a hand towards the apostles, who struggle in a small boat amid hostile waves. It is an example of mannerism: the postures are expressive, the muted sea and sky intense, and the paint is thin, and extreme highlights sharpen a light that seems to fall from a single compressed source. The little boat, heeling under its white sail, is tossed between the storm and the figure who calls to it.
The legend The disciples' fishing boat of the Gospels, a small open boat of the Sea of Galilee.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Circle of Jacopo Tintoretto, probably Lambert Sustris, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' boat Myth and legend
Jesus Being Awakened during a Tempest on the Sea of Galilee (folio 77 recto, Mirror of Holiness, Mir'at al quds), 1602 to 1604
Artist Mughal court painter, made for Prince Salim
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (2005.145.77.a)
Medium Gum tempera, ink, colour and gold on paper
The Mughal emperor Akbar, known for his interest in world religions, commissioned a Persian life of Christ, the Mirror of Holiness, from the Spanish Jesuit Jerome Xavier, and this illustrated copy was made at Allahabad for Prince Salim. Here the apostles panic in the storm while Jesus sleeps on, the moment before they wake him; one in green seems to be seasick, and a crocodile sticks its head out of the waves. The gale twists the sail violently and swings a Mughal-style tassel at the masthead. It is the only picture in the Cleveland manuscript based on an identifiable European print: a Gospel boat translated into the art of India.
The legend A vessel of the Gospel narrative, painted as a sailing boat with Mughal details such as the tassel at the masthead.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Cleveland Museum of Art, where the original is kept. Photo: Percival Kestreltail, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Myth, faith and allegory · Drawing
Peter's fishing boats Myth and legend
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (sketch for an engraving), 1618 to 1619
Artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577 to 1640)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG680)
Medium Black chalk and oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Rubens made this sketch as the model for an engraving by Schelte à Bolswert, basing it on the central panel of the triptych he painted in 1617 to 1618 for the church of the Mechelen Fishmongers' Guild, commissioned in a short spell of prosperity after fifty difficult years for the fishing industry. The fishermen haul in a net near breaking, two of them submerged in the sea to help with the weight, while Christ stands in the boat, his robe billowing in the sea air. In the upper left a man rows a second boat across to help with the load. It is a miracle of fishing, made for fishermen.
The legend The fishing boats of Simon Peter and his partners on the Sea of Galilee, from the Gospel of Luke (5:1 to 11).
Sources National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship of Marie de' Medici Unnamed
The Disembarkation of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles (Le Débarquement de la reine à Marseille, le 3 novembre 1600), 1622 to 1625
Artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577 to 1640)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 1774)
Medium Oil on canvas
Part of the cycle Marie de' Medici commissioned to commemorate her life and that of her late husband Henri IV, this canvas records her arrival at Marseilles on 3 November 1600. Rubens turns a landing into mythology: the young queen steps from a sailing ship into the port while Fame flies overhead, an allegory of France welcomes her, and Neptune, with his tritons and nereids, looks on from the water. The ship is the hinge of the picture, the point where the voyage ends and a reign begins.
The vessels The sailing ship that brought Marie de' Medici to Marseilles on 3 November 1600, transformed by Rubens into a stage for allegory attended by sea gods.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Peter Paul Rubens, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' fishing boat Myth and legend
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633
Artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 to 1669)
Where to see it Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (stolen in 1990, whereabouts unknown)
Medium Oil on canvas
Rembrandt's only known seascape brings us close to the boat as a towering wave crashes against the bow and shreds the sail. The disciples fight to regain control, one vomits over the side, and one, looking straight out at us, is a self-portrait of Rembrandt; on the right, in shadow, Christ remains calm. Light streams from the upper left through a patch of blue sky while the right side sinks into darkness. It was his earliest large-scale work, painted at twenty-seven. In the early hours of 18 March 1990 thieves cut it from its frame at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and it has not been seen since.
The legend A vessel of the Gospel story (Luke 8:22 to 25), painted as a North Sea fishing boat. Rembrandt modelled it on the Dutch hoeker but made the hull asymmetrical and thickened the mast for drama.
Sources Wikipedia · gardnermuseum.org
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Saint Paula's ship at Ostia Myth and legend
Landscape with Saint Paula of Rome Embarking at Ostia, 1639 to 1640
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
Philip IV of Spain commissioned landscapes from Claude, Poussin and others for a gallery in the Buen Retiro palace, and the Count-Duke of Olivares, who directed the work, imposed saints and biblical figures as subjects. Claude was given Saint Paula of Rome leaving the port of Ostia, one of four tall upright pictures he painted for the series. A tall ship waits at the far end of a harbour between palaces and a round tower, and rowing boats crowd the quay as Paula and her companions come down to embark. Details from it reappear in his Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus.
The legend An imaginary ship for Saint Paula's departure from Ostia, painted as a ship of Claude's own time.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Claude Lorrain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ships of Saint Ursula and the Barberini Myth and legend
Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula, 1641
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG30)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the Golden Legend Ursula, a Christian princess from Britain or Brittany, makes a pilgrimage to Rome with eleven thousand virgins and meets her martyrdom at Cologne on the way home. Claude shows her in yellow holding a flag with a red cross, watching her companions embark with bows and arrows, the weapons of their coming death. The bows of the ships on the right point across the picture to lead the eye to her, and the ships in the centre fly blue flags with the emblem of the Barberini, Claude's most influential patrons. The soft hazy light, low sun and calm sea are typical of Claude's seaports.
The legend Imaginary ships in an imaginary seaport; the ships in the centre fly the Barberini emblem, a compliment to the painting's owner, Fausto Poli, administrator of the Barberini possessions, and to his patrons.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: Claude Lorrain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Cleopatra's fleet at Tarsus Myth and legend
The Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus (Le Débarquement de Cléopâtre à Tarse), 1642
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 4716)
Medium Oil on canvas
Plutarch describes Cleopatra sailing to Tarsus in 41 BC to meet Mark Antony, the start of their alliance. Claude sets the meeting in a harbour at dusk: the queen and her train have come ashore and are received by the city, while ships with masts and sails rise the full height of the left side and boats still ferry passengers in. Far out, more ships dissolve into the light of the setting sun at the centre of the canvas. Commissioned by Cardinal Angelo Giori, it later belonged to Louis XIV at Versailles.
The legend A historical episode told by Plutarch, painted with imaginary vessels in an imaginary port; Claude drew on details from his Embarkation of Saint Paula and Embarkation of Saint Ursula.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Claude Lorrain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The fleet of Aeneas Myth and legend
The Trojan Women Setting Fire to Their Fleet, c. 1643
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (55.119)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the Aeneid the women of Troy, worn out by their long wandering since the Greeks took their city, set fire to their own ships so that the voyage must end. Claude sets the fleet off a beach beneath one of the luminous skies that the Met counts among the achievements of European landscape painting, while the women hurry along the shore towards the moored ships. Distant clouds and rain foretell the storm that Jupiter sent, at Aeneas's prayer, to put out the flames. The picture was painted for Cardinal Girolamo Farnese, who came to Rome in 1643 after years of missions abroad.
The legend A mythical fleet: the ships of Aeneas and the Trojan exiles in Virgil's Aeneid, painted as Claude imagined ancient vessels.
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Claude Lorrain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's ship at Chryse Myth and legend
Ulysses Returns Chryseis to her Father (Ulysse remet Chryséis à son père), c. 1644
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 4718)
Medium Oil on canvas
Claude paints the port of Chryse as Ulysses arrives to bring Chryseis back to her father Chryses, the priest of Apollo. The great ship has come in to a harbour of palaces and colonnades, boats ply across the water, and on the left oxen are being landed for the sacrifice to Apollo demanded by the seer Calchas. It was commissioned by Roger du Plessis-Liancourt and hangs in the Louvre with its pair, Paris and Oenone. The National Gallery notes that it was one of the earlier pictures that inspired Claude's Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba.
The legend A mythical vessel from Homer's Iliad, painted as a large sailing ship of Claude's own century.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · National Gallery
Image: Claude Lorrain; photo Mbzt, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Queen of Sheba's fleet Myth and legend
Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1648
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG14)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Bible sends the Queen of Sheba to Solomon across the desert by camel; Claude sends her by sea. Crowned and dressed in red, she comes down the steps while two men carry a chest and others prepare to row her party out to the larger ships, all in the soft warm light of sunrise that catches the ripples, the undersides of the clouds and the silhouettes of the boats. Painted in 1648 for the Duc de Bouillon, whose name is inscribed on the last step, it hangs beside Turner's Dido building Carthage, because Turner left his picture to the nation on condition that it hang next to Claude's.
The legend Imaginary seventeenth-century ships in a classical port; the fleet stands for the Queen's voyage to Jerusalem in 1 Kings 10.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: Claude Lorrain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Print
Noah's Ark Myth and legend
Noah and the Animals Entering the Ark, 1650 to 1655
Artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609 to 1664)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1993.222)
Medium Etching
Animals were among Castiglione's favourite subjects, and the story of Noah gave him every excuse. Men guide horses, deer, dogs, goats and even guinea pigs towards the ark through a lush landscape of swirling vegetation. Castiglione had seen etchings by his contemporary Rembrandt, then little known in Italy, and borrowed their sketchy, draughtsman's freedom, combining deeply and lightly etched lines to create a recession into space. The ship here is a destination, glimpsed beyond the procession of creatures that will fill it.
The legend The vessel of the Genesis flood narrative, built by Noah to carry his family and the animals.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship bound for Crete with Saint Paul Myth and legend
Coastal Scene with the Embarkation of Saint Paul, 1654
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (1962P69)
Medium Oil on copper
Acts tells how Paul, a prisoner sent to Rome, advised wintering in port, but the Roman officer and the ship's captain decided to sail on towards the Cretan harbour of Phoenix when a gentle south wind blew. Claude paints that fateful departure at dawn. Paul, the officer and the captain walk down to a boat that will take them out to the waiting ship; other ships lie at anchor behind two great ruined Corinthian columns, and a ray of light from the reflection of the rising sun points straight at the saint. Painted on copper for the Roman collector Carlo Cardelli, it was once sold as an Embarkation of Saint Paula.
The legend The ship of Acts 27 that carried Paul towards Rome as a prisoner; Claude paints it as a ship of his own day.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Claude Lorrain, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Drawing
Noah's Ark Myth and legend
Noah's Ark, c. 1660
Artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 to 1669)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1953.36)
Medium Pen and brown ink and brush and brown ink wash on cream laid paper
Around 1660 Rembrandt drew Noah's family boarding the ark before the flood described in Genesis, in one of his most expressive uses of the reed pen. The vessel stretches across the entire width of the sheet, and he stressed the act of departure with figures in the lower left who gesture inward, as if pointing to where they will soon go. He drew a border, somewhat haphazardly, around the composition, a sign that he was satisfied with it. Scenes like this set the standard his pupils aimed to match.
The legend The vessel of the Genesis flood narrative, built by Noah at God's command.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The golden boat to Cythera Myth and legend
The Embarkation for Cythera (Pèlerinage à l'île de Cythère), 1717
Artist Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684 to 1721)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV. 8525)
Medium Oil on canvas
Watteau's reception piece for the Royal Academy in 1717 is a fête galante on the island of love. Couples rise from the grove of Venus and wander, cupids fluttering around them, down to the shore where a golden boat waits to carry them away. Oddly, they seem to be leaving Cythera rather than arriving, and Watteau never said which. The golden boat is less a vessel than a promise, the last step of a love affair painted in a haze where it could be dawn or dusk.
The legend An allegorical boat. Cythera, a Greek island, was held to be the birthplace of Venus; Watteau's idea may come from contemporary theatre, such as Dancourt's Les Trois Cousines.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Jean-Antoine Watteau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Argo Myth and legend
The Capture of the Golden Fleece, 1742 to 1743
Artist Jean-François de Troy (1679 to 1752)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG6512)
Medium Oil on canvas
This small oil sketch is the third of a series of seven illustrations of the story of Jason, made as designs for cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry works and commissioned by Philibert Orry on behalf of the French king. Medea's magic has put the dragon to sleep, and Jason pulls the Golden Fleece down from its tree while she gestures in wonder. Some of the Argonauts watch admiringly; others direct the loading of the Argo for the triumphant departure of Jason and Medea. The National Gallery notes the ease and freedom with which de Troy worked at this scale, and the waiting ship turns a moment of triumph into the start of a voyage.
The legend A mythical vessel: the Argo, in which Jason and his Argonauts sailed to Colchis on the Black Sea in quest of the Golden Fleece.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Jean-François de Troy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Phlegyas's boat on the Styx Myth and legend
The Barque of Dante (La Barque de Dante, also Dante et Virgile), 1822
Artist Eugène Delacroix (1798 to 1863)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 3820)
Medium Oil on canvas
Delacroix's first picture shown in public and his first entry to the Paris Salon, painted intensively over two and a half months, takes Canto VIII of the Inferno: Dante and Virgil cross the Styx in the boat of Phlegyas while the damned cling to it and try to climb aboard, and the city of Dis burns behind. The boat is a small dark skiff low in the water, and everything depends on it. Gros praised it as a chastised Rubens, and scholars have compared its colour with Géricault's Raft of the Medusa. The drops of water on the bodies of the damned, painted in unmixed colours, were an early sign of Delacroix's analytical use of colour.
The legend A mythical vessel: the boat of the ferryman Phlegyas in Dante's Inferno, which carries Dante and Virgil across the marsh of the Styx.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's galley Myth and legend
Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, Homer's Odyssey, 1829
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG508)
Medium Oil on canvas
Ulysses stands on the deck of his ship beneath a red banner, helmeted and in a scarlet cloak, raising the flaming torch with which he blinded the cyclops, whose huge shadowy body lies across the clifftop above. The sun rises through the morning mist, drawn by the horses of Apollo, and luminous nereids with flying fish gather at the prow. Turner painted it for the Royal Academy of 1829 when his canvases from Rome were delayed, in response to the sunrises of Claude. One hostile reviewer complained of colouring gone mad, but Ruskin called it the central picture of Turner's career.
“the central picture of Turner's career”
John Ruskin, writing in 1856, quoted by the National Gallery
The legend A mythical vessel: the ship of Odysseus escaping the island of Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey, Book IX. Turner gave it banners, one bearing the Trojan Horse.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Sailing vessels on the sea held in a giant's goblet Myth and legend
The Titan's Goblet, 1833
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (04.29.2)
Medium Oil on canvas
Perhaps Cole's most enigmatic picture: a colossal stone goblet stands in an ordinary landscape, and on the water it holds sail tiny ships, while a Greek temple and an Italian palace sit among the greenery of its rim. Cole left no explanation. Readers have seen the world tree of Norse myth, the relic of a race of giants, or an echo of Turner's Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, which Cole had sketched on his European tour. His friend and biographer Louis Legrand Noble saw a fairy land for tourists, a little sea from Greece or the Holy Land. The ships make the goblet a world in miniature, a landscape within a landscape.
“a little sea from Greece, or Holy Land, with Greek and Syrian life”
Louis Legrand Noble, Cole's friend and biographer
The legend Imaginary vessels: Cole painted a miniature sea dotted with sailing ships and pleasure boats inside the goblet's rim.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Cole, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The voyager's boat Myth and legend
The Voyage of Life: Childhood, 1842
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
In the first of Cole's four pictures an infant, guarded by an angel, glides out of a dark, craggy cave into a lush green morning world. Cole called the cave emblematic of our earthly origin and the mysterious past. The boat is an ornate golden craft whose figurehead holds an hourglass, the sign of time, and it carries the child along a smooth, narrow stream that stands for the sheltered experience of childhood. Cole painted the first set in 1840 and this second set in Rome in 1841 to 1842; exhibited in several American cities, it drew further attention after his unexpected death in 1848.
The legend An allegorical vessel carrying the voyager along the River of Life through the four stages of human life; Cole wrote detailed descriptions of each picture.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Cole, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The voyager's boat Myth and legend
The Voyage of Life: Manhood, 1842
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
Storm clouds close in, rain falls, and the boat plunges towards rapids through a gorge marked by a riven tree. The man has let go of the tiller, which may be broken, and kneels with hands clasped, looking up; far above, unseen, his angel still watches. Cole wrote that trouble is characteristic of the period of manhood, and that the upward and imploring look of the voyager shows the faith that saves him. In this second version Cole moved the boat closer to the rapids and changed the man from standing to kneeling.
“Trouble is characteristic of the period of Manhood.”
Thomas Cole
The legend An allegorical vessel carrying the voyager along the River of Life through the four stages of human life; Cole wrote detailed descriptions of each picture.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Cole, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The voyager's boat Myth and legend
The Voyage of Life: Old Age, 1842
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
At the end of the voyage the water is calm and dark and the land almost gone, only a few rough rocks marking the edge of the earthly world. The figurehead and hourglass have vanished from the battered boat: the old voyager has reached the end of earthly time. His guardian angel hovers close beside him and gestures towards another angel descending from heaven through a break in the clouds, as the river opens into the waters of eternity. Cole described the chains of corporeal existence falling away. After three pictures of travel, the boat has become a place of arrival.
The legend An allegorical vessel carrying the voyager along the River of Life through the four stages of human life; Cole wrote detailed descriptions of each picture.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Cole, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The voyager's boat Myth and legend
The Voyage of Life: Youth, 1842
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
Now the voyager has taken the tiller himself. The angel waves from the bank and lets him go, and he leans forward in his boat towards a shining citadel in the sky, the dream of youthful ambition. The calm river seems to lead straight to it, but at the far right it turns rough, with dangerous rocks he cannot see. Cole wrote that the clear stream, the lofty trees and the unbounded distance figure forth the romantic beauty of youthful imaginings, before experience teaches what is the Real.
“figure forth the romantic beauty of youthful imaginings, when the mind elevates the mean and common into the magnificent”
Thomas Cole
The legend An allegorical vessel carrying the voyager along the River of Life through the four stages of human life; Cole wrote detailed descriptions of each picture.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Cole, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Noah's Ark Myth and legend
Noah's Ark, 1846
Artist Edward Hicks (1780 to 1849)
Where to see it Philadelphia Museum of Art
Medium Oil on canvas
Hicks, a Quaker minister who had once earned his living as an ornamental painter, based this composition on an 1844 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier and filled it with animals like those of his Peaceable Kingdom pictures. Under a dark storm sky the animals make their way two by two towards the ark and up the ramp into it, as peaceable here as in his visions of harmony between creatures and people. For Hicks the ark stood for redemption and for the hope that all could live together in peace. He painted it three years before his death.
The legend The vessel of the Genesis flood narrative, built by Noah at God's command to carry his family and pairs of every animal.
Sources Philadelphia Museum of Art · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Edward Hicks, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' boat Myth and legend
Christ Asleep during the Tempest, c. 1853
Artist Eugène Delacroix (1798 to 1863)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.131)
Medium Oil on canvas
Delacroix painted at least six versions of the Gospel story in which Christ sleeps in the boat while a storm breaks over the Sea of Galilee and his disciples struggle to keep it afloat. In the Met's canvas the boat is small and crowded, tossed on blue-green water, with Christ lying at rest under a pale yellow halo. Vincent van Gogh saw the painting on display in Paris in 1886 and wrote of it as the blue and green sketch with touches of purple and red and a little lemon yellow for the halo, a boat that spoke through colour itself.
“speaks a symbolic language through color itself”
Vincent van Gogh, on this painting
The legend A vessel of the Gospel narrative; a small open boat of the Sea of Galilee.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' boat Myth and legend
Christ on the Sea of Galilee, 1854
Artist Eugène Delacroix (1798 to 1863)
Where to see it Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (37.186)
Medium Oil on canvas
Three Gospels tell how a furious storm broke out while Jesus and his disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee, and how, to their amazement, he calmed the wind and the waves. Delacroix painted several variations on the subject in 1853 and 1854, when it was popular with French Catholics under Louis Napoléon. In this version of 1854 a small two-masted boat heels in a green sea, its torn sail flapping loose, while the disciples struggle with the gear and Christ lies asleep at one end, his halo glowing. The little boat carries the whole drama of fear and faith.
The legend A vessel of the Gospel narrative told in Matthew, Mark and Luke; painted as a small open boat with two masts and sails.
Sources art.thewalters.org · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Charon's boat Myth and legend
Charon Ferrying the Souls of the Dead across the Styx (Kharon), 1861
Artist Alexander Litovchenko (1835 to 1890)
Where to see it State Russian Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Litovchenko painted Charon carrying the souls of the dead across the Styx as a student at the Imperial Academy of Arts, and though his peers criticised his rather stilted compositions, the picture won him a lesser gold medal. It is the Academy's classical tradition at full stretch: the ferryman of the dead and his boat on the water between the living and the dead. Two years later, in 1863, Litovchenko left the Academy with several other young painters who challenged the academism that prevailed there.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ferry in which Charon carries the souls of the dead across the river Styx.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Alexander Litovchenko, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ragnar Lodbrok's ship Myth and legend
Kraka, 1862
Artist Mårten Eskil Winge (1825 to 1896)
Where to see it Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NM 1247)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the saga, Ragnar Lodbrok sets the clever Kraka a riddle: come to me neither dressed nor naked, neither hungry nor fed, neither alone nor in company. She arrives wrapped in a fishing net, with an onion and a dog, and he is so impressed by her wit that he marries her. Winge paints her seated on the rocky shore in her net, her dog beside her and an onion on the ground, and far out on the water lies Ragnar's ship, the reason for the whole encounter. Painted in Rome, the picture was bought by King Charles XV and came to the Nationalmuseum on his death in 1872.
The legend A legendary ship of the saga hero Ragnar Lodbrok, shown by Winge as a small sailing ship in the distance.
Sources Wikipedia (SV) · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Mårten Eskil Winge, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The boat of illusions Myth and legend
Lost Illusions (Le Soir), 1865 to 1867
Artist Charles Gleyre (1806 to 1874) and Léon Dussart
Where to see it Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (37.184)
Medium Oil on canvas
Gleyre said the picture came to him as a vision on the evening of 1 March 1835, sitting on the bank of the Nile near Abydos. An ageing poet sits on the shore, his lyre at his feet, and watches a boat carry away his youthful dreams and illusions: maidens making music and a cupid strewing flowers. The figures wear classical Greek dress, but their vessel resembles a dahabieh, an Egyptian river boat. William Walters commissioned this replica of Gleyre's masterpiece Le Soir, now in the Louvre, through the dealers Goupil in 1865; begun by Gleyre's pupil Léon Dussart and reworked by Gleyre himself, it took two years to complete.
“this reproduction is beautifully done”
Goupil & Cie, letter to William Walters
The legend An allegorical vessel which, as the Walters notes, resembles a dahabieh, an Egyptian river boat.
Sources art.thewalters.org · Wikipedia
Image: Charles Gleyre, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Elaine's funeral barge Myth and legend
Elaine, 1874
Artist Toby Edward Rosenthal (1848 to 1917)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1917.3)
Medium Oil on canvas
In Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Elaine dies of a broken heart after Lancelot spurns her, and her body is carried from Astolat to Camelot by boat. Rosenthal paints that last voyage: the pale maiden lies on a rich cloth in a barge garlanded with roses, a hooded boatman steering at the stern, on dark still water under an evening sky. Painted in Munich for a San Francisco banker, the picture was sold elsewhere when the banker refused to pay more, a small scandal. Bought by an American patron, it set off what the museum calls Elaine hysteria: clubs were formed in her honour, dirges and waltzes were composed, and copies of the poem sold out.
“In her right hand the lily, in her left”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King, quoted by the Art Institute of Chicago
The legend A fictional barge from Tennyson's Idylls of the King, which carries Elaine's body from Astolat to Camelot, rowed by a retainer.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Image: Toby Edward Rosenthal, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ferry to the island Myth and legend
Island of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), second version, 1880
Artist Arnold Böcklin (1827 to 1901)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (26.90)
Medium Oil on wood
In April 1880 Marie Berna visited Böcklin's studio in Florence and was struck by the first Isle of the Dead, half-finished on the easel, so he painted this smaller version on wood for her. At her request he added the coffin and the female figure in white, an allusion to her husband's death years before, and then added them to the first version too. The boat is what makes the picture: a slow, silent crossing, the oarsman's stroke the only movement among stone and cypress. Many viewers have taken him for Charon.
The legend An imaginary boat, commonly read as Charon's ferry carrying a soul to the underworld.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia
Image: Arnold Böcklin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ferry to the island Myth and legend
Isle of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), first version, 1880
Artist Arnold Böcklin (1827 to 1901)
Where to see it Kunstmuseum Basel
Medium Oil on canvas
A rowing boat nears a rocky islet crowded with tall dark cypresses and cut with what look like tomb doors. An oarsman works from the stern; in the bow stands a figure clad all in white beside a festooned object read as a coffin. Böcklin never explained the picture, calling it a dream picture that should be so still that a knock at the door would startle. He completed this first version in May 1880 for his patron Alexander Günther; the coffin and the white figure were added after Marie Berna asked for them on her own version. Many viewers have seen Charon in the rower, carrying a soul across to the other shore.
“a dream picture: it must produce such a stillness that one would be awed by a knock on the door”
Arnold Böcklin
The legend An imaginary boat. Böcklin's island is thought in part to evoke the English Cemetery in Florence, close to his studio, where his infant daughter Maria was buried.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Arnold Böcklin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Wreck of Ulysses's ship Myth and legend
Ulysses after the Shipwreck, c. 1880 to 1884
Artist Jean-Charles Cazin (1841 to 1901)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (L694, on loan from Tate)
Medium Oil on canvas
Zeus has destroyed all of Ulysses's ships and crew for the killing of the sun god's cattle, and after nine days clinging to the timbers of his shattered ship the hero has reached the island of Ogygia. Cazin paints him alone on the shore, brooding in a brown sleeveless tunic and red sash, and in the foreground lies a large broken section of mast. That single spar is all that remains of the fleet, and it says more about loss than any storm could. The shore is most probably the coast at Equihen near Boulogne, where Cazin lived.
The legend A mythical vessel: the last of Odysseus's ships, destroyed by Zeus in a storm after the crew slaughtered the cattle of the sun god Helios.
Sources National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ferry to the island Myth and legend
Isle of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), third version, 1883
Artist Arnold Böcklin (1827 to 1901)
Where to see it Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Medium Oil on board
The third version, painted in 1883 for the dealer Fritz Gurlitt, is the one for which Gurlitt coined the title the picture has carried ever since, and from this version on one of the burial chambers in the rock bears Böcklin's initials. Prints were so popular in central Europe that Nabokov could write that they were found in every Berlin home, and Rachmaninoff wrote his symphonic poem after a black-and-white print. The white figure and the silent rower make the boat a crossing between worlds. This panel had a darker afterlife: Hitler bought it in 1933 and hung it at the Berghof and later in the New Reich Chancellery; it is now in the Alte Nationalgalerie.
“found in every Berlin home”
Vladimir Nabokov, Despair (1936), on prints of the painting
The legend An imaginary boat, commonly read as Charon's ferry carrying a soul to the underworld.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Arnold Böcklin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship that cast Jonah overboard Myth and legend
Jonah, c. 1885 to 1895
Artist Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 to 1917)
Where to see it Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1929.6.98)
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on fibreboard
Jonah flees from God by ship, the sea rises, and the sailors throw him overboard to save themselves; the great fish is waiting. Ryder chose this biblical tale of damnation, terror and salvation because it suited his poetic temperament, and painted Jonah struggling in the pitching waves beside the boat, with the whale close by. It is one of his most densely painted canvases, reworked so many times that the museum notes the paint is still soft to the touch after more than a century. Later American artists drew on his example; Jackson Pollock once said Ryder was the only American master who interested him.
“The only American master who interests me is Ryder.”
Jackson Pollock
The legend A vessel of the Book of Jonah, the ship whose crew cast the prophet into the sea to calm a storm.
Sources Smithsonian American Art Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Albert Pinkham Ryder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ferry to the island Myth and legend
Isle of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), fifth version, 1886
Artist Arnold Böcklin (1827 to 1901)
Where to see it Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig
Medium Oil on board
In 1886 the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig commissioned a fifth version of the Isle of the Dead, and it still hangs there. The formula is unchanged and still hypnotic: a small rowing boat arriving at the water gate, the oarsman at the stern, a standing figure clad entirely in white in the bow, and before it a white, festooned object commonly read as a coffin. Its admirers ranged from Freud, who kept a reproduction in his office, to Lenin, who had one above his bed, and Rachmaninoff answered the picture with a symphonic poem.
The legend An imaginary rowing boat bringing a white-clad figure and a coffin to a rocky island of the dead.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Arnold Böcklin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Flying Dutchman Myth and legend
Flying Dutchman, completed by 1887
Artist Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 to 1917)
Where to see it Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1929.6.95)
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on fibreboard
Ryder took his subject from the legend Wagner set to music, the ship that can never make port and whose sight in bad weather sailors took as a portent of doom. In this small canvas a boat crowded with figures pitches in a storm, while the phantom ship looms as a shadow in the glowing sky beyond. The legend becomes weather and light rather than narrative. Ryder, who began painting in the whaling port of New Bedford, built his pictures slowly out of layers of paint, resin and varnish, often working on them for ten years or more; the surface of this one is now crazed with cracks.
The legend A legendary ghost ship, first mentioned in print in 1790 as a Dutchman lost off the Cape of Good Hope whose vision appears in very bad weather; it was commonly believed to have been a seventeenth-century cargo fluyt.
Sources Smithsonian American Art Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Albert Pinkham Ryder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Lady of Shalott's boat Myth and legend
The Lady of Shalott, 1888
Artist John William Waterhouse (1849 to 1917)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (N01543)
Medium Oil on canvas
Tennyson's Lady, cursed to see the world only in a mirror and to weave what she saw, has looked out of the window at Lancelot and brought the curse upon herself, and takes a small boat down the river towards Camelot and her death. Waterhouse paints the moment of setting out. She sits in white on the tapestry she has woven; at the bow are a lantern, a crucifix and three candles, two of them already blown out. Reeds, water plants and a pair of swallows make the river an English one. The little boat is both her escape and her bier.
The legend A fictional boat from Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shalott (1832, revised 1842), on whose prow the Lady writes her name before drifting down to Camelot.
Sources Tate · Wikipedia
Image: John William Waterhouse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's ship Myth and legend
Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891
Artist John William Waterhouse (1849 to 1917)
Where to see it National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Medium Oil on canvas
Waterhouse looks down into Ulysses's galley as it passes between high cliffs. The crew, their ears blocked, pull at the oars; Ulysses is bound to the mast so that he may hear the Sirens' song without risking himself or his ship. The Sirens swoop over the deck and perch on the rigging as birds with the heads of women, which surprised a public expecting mermaids, though the critic Marion Spielmann noted that classical Greek vases show them in just this way. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1891, it was bought that June by Sir Hubert von Herkomer for the National Gallery of Victoria.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ship of Odysseus (Ulysses) in Homer's Odyssey, Book XII.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: John William Waterhouse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
A Viking funeral ship Myth and legend
The Funeral of a Viking, 1893
Artist Sir Frank Dicksee (1853 to 1928)
Where to see it Manchester Art Gallery (1928.13)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dicksee paints the Viking sea burial as a scene of fire and night. On the shore a crowd of warriors raise their arms and weapons as the burning ship carrying the body is pushed out, an armoured man in a crested helmet at their head holding a flaming torch. Muscular men haul the boat, its stern carved into the head of a mythical beast, into the rough sea, while the dead Viking lies in full armour among the flames. Almost all the light comes from the pyre and the torch, glowing on the water and the wet shore beneath dark mountains. Dicksee designed the gilt frame himself, with a chain pattern taken from Viking ornament.
The legend An imagined Viking funeral ship, carved with a beast's head at the stern; the painting follows the romantic idea of burial at sea rather than any recorded event.
Sources manchesterartgallery.org · Wikimedia Commons · Art UK · Wikipedia
Image: Sir Frank Dicksee, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Leif Erikson's ship Myth and legend
Leiv Eirikson Discovering America (Leiv Eirikson oppdager Amerika), 1893
Artist Christian Krohg (1852 to 1925)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet (National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design), Oslo (NG.M.00558)
Medium Oil on canvas
Krohg puts us on the deck of Leif Erikson's ship as land appears on the horizon to the left. Leif stands at the steering oar in a mustard tunic, upright and pointing, while his men hunch around him, some of them seasick. The picture won a contest set by the Leif Erikson Memorial Association of Chicago and was shown at the World's Fair of 1893, beside the Viking, a replica of the Gokstad ship that had sailed from Norway for the occasion. A copy by Krohg's son Per has hung in the United States Capitol since 1936.
The legend The ship of Leif Erikson's voyage to North America told in the sagas of Icelanders. At the 1893 fair much of the literature wrongly presented both the replica Viking, built after the Gokstad ship, and the ship in Krohg's painting as exact copies of Leif's vessel.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Christian Krohg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Vainamoinen's boat in the Kalevala Myth and legend
The Defense of the Sampo (Sammon puolustus), 1896
Artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865 to 1931)
Where to see it Turku Art Museum, Turku (66)
Medium Tempera on canvas
Gallen-Kallela takes the 43rd song of the Kalevala. Väinämöinen has stolen the precious Sampo from the witch Louhi, and she, turned into a giant bird with warriors riding on her back, overtakes his boat to seize it back. The old hero, white hair streaming, raises his sword from the bow while his men thrust spears and oars up at her claws. When it was first shown it was considered the painter's finest work, a battle for the soul of Finland fought from a small boat. The patron's wife disliked it so much that the commission was dissolved, and the Turku Arts Association bought it for the unheard-of price of 4,000 marks.
The legend A mythical vessel: in the Kalevala the heroes carry the stolen Sampo away by boat and are overtaken at sea by Louhi in the form of a giant bird.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's ship Myth and legend
Ulysses and the Sirens, 1909
Artist Herbert James Draper (1863 to 1920)
Where to see it Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull
Medium Oil on canvas
Draper brings the Sirens aboard. Homer has only two Sirens, who stay in their meadow, and ancient Greek art showed them as frightening creatures; Draper makes them beautiful sea women whose tails vanish as they climb over the side, so that their song becomes something the viewer can see. The rowers strain at their oars and Ulysses, tied to the mast, pulls against his bonds. The Ferens Art Gallery in Hull bought the canvas from the painter in 1910 for £600, and a smaller replica is at Leeds. The philosopher Jon Elster later borrowed its title for his book on precommitment.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ship of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Herbert James Draper, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons